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1 day ago

1 month ago

I like what you're going for here, but I see some places where you might consider changes. Specifically I like your cantripping combat tricks (buff, commander trigger, and replace themselves, all pretty great), and I like using Prowess creatures to sort of double-dip on the effect your Commander provides.

Your average CMC is nice and low, which is great. Unfortunately you're not running very much ramp, in combination with a somewhat low land count. A deck like this is going to be deceptively mana-hungry - you only get your Commander's buff till end of turn, so ideally you want to cast multiple spells in a single turn to pump the team as much as possible. Preferably mid-combat. Multiple spells means a lot of mana. I'd look at adding rocks, especially rocks that are 2CMC or less. Wayfarer's Bauble, Fellwar Stone, Coldsteel Heart, Star Compass are all great budget rocks for a 2-color mana base. Slightly more expensive are Fire Diamond, Sky Diamond, and Gilded Lotus. Since you're using combat and only running two colors, Sword of the Animist would work well too.

You have a decent number of cost-reducers for instants and sorceries, but I;ve always found that those aren;t really a good substitute for ramp. They're great cards, and if you build the deck with lots of instants/sorceries with generic mana costs they can really help you cast multiple spells in a turn, but they supplement ramp, they can't actually replace it. Similarly, Mana Geyser costs 5 - it's not really "ramp." It's a one-time effect for a big turn, but you need enough ramp to be able to cast a 5CMC ritual in the first place.

If you can spare the cash (and hopefully it'll get a reprint in the next Ravnica set), Cyclonic Rift is the 2nd most-played card in Commander for good reason. It's some of the best removal available in any color.

Also bear in mind that "copy spell" effects don;t provide additional cast triggers. If you use Bonus Round, then cast Brainstorm, you still only get two cast triggers total, even though three spells will resolve. To get extra cast triggers you need wording like on Isochron Scepter - "you may cast the copy."

Card draw is fantastically important, and so is evasion. Open Into Wonder does both for you. Kindred Discovery would be pretty much perfect for this deck, and I think it came in this precon so you might already have a copy; otherwise I think the price has risen unfortunately. Card is a powerhouse for tribal decks.

Now, combat damage with no infinite combos is pretty tough to pull off in Commander, where you have 3 opponents typically and everybody starts with 40 life. Thats a lot of damage you need to rack up, and your combat buff effects basically all wear off at the end of the turn, leaving you with a bunch of low-power Wizards for the next turn. I'm going to make some combo-based suggestions - this would be perfectly acceptable in my meta, but everybody's playgroup is different. Some of this will be dirt cheap, some of it will cost a little.

You're already running Isochron Scepter. This card is phenomenal. It can help you pull off your main game plan (smash with Wizards), and it can also provide alternative win conditions that you can use if combat becomes unfavorable.

Scepter imprinting Dramatic Reversal with enough non-land mana sources to produce 2 mana will untap all your mana rocks, all your Wizards...and the Scepter itself, which lets you reuse it. And it casts the Imprinted card, so you get an Adelize trigger every time. You can do this infinitely to make your whole team infinitely large. If your mana rocks can produce 3 or more mana, you also can produce infinite mana.

You can also pair the Scepter with Paradox Engine. This starts to get crazy, because the Engine basically provides the same effect as Dramatic Reversal, but you an Imprint something else onto the Scepter. For example, you can Imprint Reality Shift. Activate Scepter to cast a copy of Shift, targeting an opponent's creature. Engine triggers, untapping the Scepter and your mana rocks. Reality Shift resolves, exiling the creature, and turning the top card of their library into a new creature. Activate the Scepter again to exile the Manifest creature and Manifest the next card of their library. Rinse and repeat until their entire library is in exile. Do that again for all of your opponents who have a creature out. Pass the turn, and let them lose from drawing on an empty deck. You can see how flexible this is. Opponents can stop you with well-timed interaction, but it works super well, and you're playing Blue, so you can hold counterspells to protect yourself. Engine is going up in price, I think its about $20 now, but it's well worth the buy. It'll only get more expensive.

This commander is simple, a powerful mono-blue commander that while being considered low-tier, can be a powerful unblockable voltron draw-engine, a normal draw engine, or something to attach non-voltron equipment onto.

It isn't the best commander, no, however it brings a mono-blue aggro commander onto the field, and can play a great midgame and lategame need be. Like drawing cards? It has you covered, and with extra turn spells for more damage, stacking Tandem Lookout, Sword of Fire and Ice, Fireshrieker and Ophidian Eye or Curiosity, you are drawing some 8 cards a turn, probably drawing another extra turn spell in the process. Sounds like Narset, Enlightened Master some of the time!

Don't worry about the big aggro problems of not being able to deal with threats, you often don't need to tap out, holding up mana for a Swan Song, Counterspell or Into the Roil, sometimes even the overloaded Cyclonic Rift, while still progressing your board by dropping a one or two mana enchantment onto Lu Xun.

1 month ago

what Soren841 said is correct. grixis as a color combination is severely lacking in enchantment removal as selesnya colors are where that is a mechanic. the best and perhaps only answers to enchantments are Counterspells and bounce spells.

Chain of Vapor is a card that ive been trying to squeeze into mainboard for some time and i would recommend it for sure

Cyclonic Rift is a must have in this deck, it hard Answers almost everything and works stupdily well with wheels,

2 months ago

I've been playing Lilbrudder's PST version with Thrasios and Vial Smasher and I have to say that I have been enjoying it for the past 3 months now. I used to think that Thrasios Tymna is an automatic Flash Hulk build so I decided to get Vial Smasher and go sans white to play cards like Pyro, REB, Gamble, Wheel of Fortune, Manamorphose and Fire Covenant. I never liked the Flash Hulk piles and just like what you said in the previous comments, it has more moving parts and less redundancies. I like the idea that you play less or even no dead cards.

So after seeing your list, I believe that this is perfect for me. I could run Tymna now, no Flash Hulk lines, stick with PST and more ramp. I'm starting to replace my Lilbrudder list on paper to my own version of your deck list.

Some help questions:

Plunge into Darkness: I haven't really played this before and I just want to ask, what do you usually try to find using this card? Can you consider Intuition to be a less risky card given that you can only get one (1) card from Plunge too and you don't exile the two other cards from Intuition? You can grab Noxious, Regrowth and Paradox/Isochron/Dramatic.

Your thoughts on Into the Roil replacing a less powerful countermagic? Being sans red means we dont get access to By Force, Rolling Earthquake, Vandalblast and other removals. I mean, we can't counter everything right? Do you think an additional bounce effect is needed? It also serves as another draw spell when trying to goldfish.

Your thoughts on Unsubstantiate? Again another bounce card specifically for creatures and spells. This can be good with creature heavy decks and it can also retaliate against Abrupt Decays or any uncounterable spells like when Boseiju or Cavern is used.

Lastly, I super like it that you guys religiously respond to comments in this list. Super thanks!

2 months ago

Yes definitely keep the artifact synergy, honestly if you don't like the combo approach and want to go for the more interaction routes with fun things to play (like playing with other people's deck ;3) than I would suggest more protection, counterspells, artifact synergy, card draw, as well as interaction.

Here is a list of some additional cards that I found useful and within the $20 or less range.

A couple more useful counters, best one I like to use for Sen Triplets is cards like Remand, Muddle (because the 2 cmc transmute comes in clutch), and Arcane Denial as it gives more options to choose from their hand.

Shimmer Myr and Raff Capashen are honestly auto include in my opinion, giving the ability to flash in your commander and not waiting to wait one whole turn before her upkeep effect is amazing, it also allows us to hold up mana to interact with other players before deciding what we can do. The curve is also great since Shimmer Myr is 3 cmc and Raff is 4 cmc, we can hold mana for our counterspells and interactions and if the coast is clear flash in Sen. Trophy Mage is for the redundancy that you have more than a likely chance of tutoring your Shimmer Myr or Crystal Shard (Shard always makes sure that your opponent will be reluctant to tap out and thus preventing them to cast more creature spells). Voltaic Key is there just for more fun shenanigans, I always like having them in these type of artifact decks. Academy Ruins is a card I would highly recommend investing into, it saves your artifacts, it allows recursion, and if the case where Sen dies, you won't have to consistently pay the tax for it with this card on the field.

On another note Paradox Engine is a powerful card, it allows you to gain extreme amount of value, hence the reason you would want to include more mana rocks into the deck. I added Aetherflux into list in the case you want to close out a game, since you are running Isochron Scepter already, adding in Dramatic Reversal will be your win con and also allows you to net infinite mana and play your opponents hand if you so would choose. The playstyle is all there for you to choose ;3

Some choice cards I like to use, Notion Thief is there for them really sneaky plays when there is a mass Windfall or if someone taps out for a burst draw. Sphinx is a high power card engine. The time warp is there for just pure value.

Some notable cards are like Snap, which untaps your land and bounces the creature back to their hand, pure value if its your turn next as now you will be able to cast that creature as well! Capsize is also a deadly card, as you can bounce their land and then play the land you bounced on your turn with Sen on the field, buyback is also killer (I have people scooped many times when I used this trick 1v1). Tower of Magistrate is really interesting against other people playing with artifacts (This auto de-quips voltron commanders!). A lot of these spells can also be copied on to Isochron Scepter making them extremely useful for you to control your opponent and allowing them what spells they can play, bouncing the spells you want to play from their deck, and removing the cards you don't like.

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